Playing Catch Up
by made-in-wonder
Summary: It's hard to become King of a world you know nothing about. Mostly a character study; may become more than a one-shot eventually.


**Author's Notes**: I don't own anything here. If you're here from/are familiar with the YGO Dressing Room, this is part of "Brunch's" specific backstory. I may continue it – there's a part two and a part three in my head, but I don't know if I'll ever write them or not.

* * *

The outside world wasn't quite all it had seemed at first glance, Marik had been quick to discover. For one thing, it got you sick an awful lot.

Tossing the washcloth Rishid had laid upon his sleeping forehead off to one side (he had a _fever_ and a _stomachache_; that didn't make him an _invalid_!), he tried to sit up in bed but, having second thoughts, winced and settled back down. This wasn't fair, he thought darkly as he reached for the book on the wooden crate he'd been using for a nightstand. It'd been what, a year now...Time hadn't had a meaning at first so he couldn't be sure, but it'd been at _least_ a year and that was the important thing.

He certainly felt like he'd sampled every disease the world had to offer in that year. Marik'd read up on the phenomenon after the first few incidents had hit. Something about immunity, exposure to new diseases. The world was apparently punishing him for not being a part of it for so long. Well, Marik'd just have to persist through that and show it wrong, wouldn't he? He had every right to this world. More than every right, in fact! And someday, that'd be clear to more people than just him and Rishid.

For now he was just a boy in a broken-down bed, reading stolen library books to catch up on eleven years underground. Marik wasn't sure where their money for food was coming from, or whether Rishid was even _paying_ for the food in the first place. He didn't really care. Those were Rishid's concerns, as they always had been. Marik had loftier things to put his mind to. But swearing revenge and following through with a practical plan had turned out, like his expectations for the world and quite a few of the realities, not quite how he'd had in mind.

No one had warned him the Rod wouldn't work perfectly on the first try, for one thing. No one'd prepared him for the realities of a world where, instead of being the most important person in the society, he was nothing – less than nothing, he was a _child_. No one'd told him the outside world didn't care about anyone, didn't want anyone looking around, didn't ever explain itself, spoke a funny language and followed funny customs. Marik knew just from listening to the outside people that his Arabic (that _was_ what the modern language was called, right?) had a funny lilt to it. Why'd that make everyone look at him strangely? And why was building the perfect deck, a deck to defeat a King, going so slowly...

Step by step, he reminded himself. Step by step. Maybe he'd see if his stomach would let him stand up to close his window. Whoever was down in the alley had started throwing what sounded like a ball around, and the noise of hard rubber bouncing off the buildings and pavement coupled with the shrieks and giggles of the ball's owners were punching through his concentration like knives through paper. Marik sighed, put the book aside, and swung his legs out of bed. Heading over to his window, bangs ruffling against a breeze that felt good on his sweaty forehead (he leaned his head out the window to breathe into the wind for a moment - even after a year, wind hadn't lost its refreshing novelty yet, as the sensation was oddly soothing and exciting at the same time), Marik reached up to grasp the open windowpane and slide it down to close it off.

As he reached, he peered down into the alley, leaning against the windowsill to keep from tipping over. Like he'd thought, kids with a ball. Three kids, two boys and a girl, one boy markedly taller than the other two. Running around, squealing and giggling without a care in the world. Marik watched in seeming disinterest, trying to determine if the game had rules out of idle curiosity and a reluctance to return to bed just yet. As far as he could determine it didn't. They were just tossing and bouncing the thing around at random, then chasing after it. The shorter boy looked to be about Marik's age, the taller one a bit older, the girl a bit younger.

Weren't they all too old for games without rules? Marik wondered with all the cynical wisdom his twelve years bestowed. Look at them, down there racing around mindlessly while up here he had an important, serious mission. They'd probably never suffered a day in their lives, while he-

Marik leaned further out the window, not wanting to shut off his source of fresh air. So far his sour stomach seemed to be behaving itself, and the wind was counteracting the fever fairly well. His mind should be clearing, then. He had important things to do. Stupid, to just watch a bunch of idiot kids chasing their ball around. Maybe he'd take a walk today, once Rishid got back from wherever he'd headed off to. Maybe he'd go to the game store and try his luck controlling the owner. Once he'd mastered the Millennium Rod, he felt certain all the necessary pieces of his preparations to destroy the Pharaoh would fall right into place - if no one could refuse him anything, he could gather whatever was needed. And gaming news, he needed gaming news, if ever there was word of a God Card he needed to track it down the moment the rumor hit the streets.

No, wait, there _was_ a rule to this game, Marik suddenly noticed, realizing at the same time he'd kept watching the kids without meaning to. If you bounced the ball off the wall opposite his building, you weren't allowed to catch it even if it bounced right back towards you. It'd headed the shorter boy's direction twice after he'd bounced it off that wall and he'd backed away from the ball both times, even though in every other circumstance he'd been hurdling himself at the toy. Was the wall a goal? The other kids did seem to try and block it, but only in certain sections...only a little bit of the wall was a goal, then...from that window to that window. Okay, then the object of the game was to keep other people from hitting the wall, but you couldn't take a shot at it if there was no one in your way...

Absorbed in piecing together the rules, Marik let his arms drop from the top half of the window and crossed them on the sill, now completely given over to spying on the game in the alleyway. It was still a stupid game, he thought to himself. They should play it in a bigger area. The wall was too close here. There was hardly any room to run around in.

"Hey."

Why didn't everybody have their own goal they were supposed to hit, instead of all using the same one, too? Marik wondered further, skeptical of the layout now that he had it decoded. Even with three players they could still set up a rotating system. Short boy could try to hit tall boy's section of the wall. Tall boy could try to hit girl's. Girl could try to hit short boy's. And so on, no matter how many players you added.

"Hey, you."

Relying just on horizontal guidelines like windows was a little vague too. Marik pondered how the goal area could better be defined. They could draw on the walls with chalk, couldn't they? It'd wash off, so the owners of the buildings couldn't complain. Marik didn't even know if he and Rishid were even supposed to be in this building, but as long as the wall got washed off he didn't see how anybody -

"Hey, you up there! I'm talkin' to _you_!"

The ball came flying at his head so suddenly Marik stumbled back out of reflex, avoiding getting rubber to the face but also setting his queasy stomach into a panic. Swallowing and gasping after the shock, he leaned forward against the windowsill again while he waited for the pain to die down, and found all three children, their game paused, staring up at him intently. The ball had been caught by the smaller of the boys. Perhaps he'd been the one who'd thrown it, too.

The smaller boy tossed the ball again - more easily this time, so it simply flew straight up in the air and then fell right back down into his hands once more. "Yeah, 'bout _time_ you listened!" he called up cheekily, and Marik frowned, unsure how to take that. But the boy was smiling. "You wanna come play?"

Marik blinked. "What?" he called back down - not the most impressive of answers, but that hadn't been a question he'd expected to be asked, either.

"We - saw - you - watching," the kid called up, more loudly this time, cupping his hand to his mouth and speaking more slowly. "Do - you - wanna - come – play?"

A refusal hovered on the tip of Marik's tongue but refused to pass between his teeth. He looked down at the three faces staring up at him - two interested, one looking kinda bored (what was that tall kid's problem?) - then down at _himself_, at his stomach, then back to his bed, where the book and his cards and yet another day of obnoxious idleness awaited him.

Finally his eyes landed on the Millennium Rod, propped respectfully on a chair in the corner, and he turned back to the trio in the alley. "Sure," Marik yelled back down, a little smile curling at the corners of his lips. This world worked itself out, sometimes! Practice had come to him. "I'll come _play_."


End file.
